[vicsireland] Evaluating Android Ice Cream Sandwich Accessibility

  • From: Ciaran Ferry <Ciaran.Ferry@xxxxxx>
  • To: "'vicsireland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'" <vicsireland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2012 12:26:11 +0000

http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw130302

    Android Ice Cream Sandwich: Evaluating the Accessibility of Android 4.0

Darren Burton and Matthew Enigk

Our May 2010 AccessWorld evaluation of Android 2.0 and 
2.1<http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw110202> found some positives to 
report, but a lack of e-mail and Web browser accessibility left a lot to be 
desired. At the time, we concluded that the platform had potential despite its 
shortcomings, and promises from Google staff left us optimistic about future 
improvements. Though there are third-party screen readers and apps available 
that enhance the accessibility of Android phones, this article focuses on the 
built-in, out-of-the-box accessibility that Google has designed into their 
Android 4.0 operating system, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich.

We used the Samsung Galaxy Nexus for this evaluation. The Nexus is a 
touchscreen phone; the only physical buttons are the power/lock button on the 
right side panel and a volume rocker on the left side panel. For this article, 
we began our testing with Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 and continued testing with 
subsequent upgrades through version 4.04.

Initial Setup

Previous versions of Android required that a user who was blind or visually 
impaired get sighted assistance to turn on the screen reader. Ice Cream 
Sandwich attempts to address this limitation: After you feel a few short 
vibrations upon booting up the phone, using your finger to draw a square 
clockwise on the screen (starting at the top left corner) should activate the 
screen reader. This was erratically successful during our testing. Your chances 
of success will be improved if you ensure that you don't touch the screen 
anywhere else first, and make sure to keep your finger on the active area of 
the screen. Once activated, the screen reader will remain active; you won't 
need to draw the square again.

An accessible tutorial comes onscreen when the screen reader starts, and the 
Talk Back speech synthesizer talks you through practicing how to use Explore by 
Touch, which will be discussed in the next section of this article.

We found the rest of the setup process to be a mixed bag as far as 
accessibility. We do suggest getting some sighted assistance to complete 
everything with minimal frustration. We found some unlabelled elements on the 
setup screens, and typing information into the required edit fields using the 
onscreen keyboard was frustrating at best.

Explore by Touch

Ice Cream Sandwich has the Talk Back, Sound Back, and Kick Back accessibility 
features found in the Android operating system. Older versions also featured 
the "Eyes-Free Shell," a home screen that gave people with vision loss a more 
consistent and well-integrated interface for navigating and using an Android 
phone. Ice Cream Sandwich features "Explore by Touch" instead, which allows you 
to move your finger around the screen while Talk Back indentifies the elements 
that are onscreen beneath your finger. When you get to an element you want to 
activate, such as the Web browser icon, you simply lift your finger and tap the 
screen at that location. Although that sounds simple, even our lab testers with 
years of experience with technology didn't always tap in the correct place, 
especially when two icons were located very close to one another on screen. In 
addition, even when sighted testers confirmed that an icon was tapped properly, 
it often didn't open.

The Onscreen Keyboard

Previous versions of Android required a physical QWERTY keyboard and a D-pad or 
track ball for accessible navigation. Ice Cream Sandwich allows the use of the 
phone's virtual onscreen QWERTY keyboard for things like filling out online 
forms and creating your contacts list. When you tap on an input field, the 
virtual keyboard appears on the bottom portion of the screen. In theory, Talk 
Back identifies each key as you move your finger around the keyboard; when you 
hear the letter you want, you lift your finger to activate the key. We found 
significant inconsistencies when trying to type with the keyboard. The keyboard 
itself often seemed to disappear, as sometimes nothing would be spoken when 
gesturing over the area where the keyboard was supposed to be. On those 
occasions when the keyboard was spoken, a letter different from the one 
indicated was often entered into the field. The testers evaluating the keyboard 
functionality often used the phrase "life's too short" to describe their 
frustrations with the erratic functionality.

Although it's not built into Ice Cream Sandwich, Eyes-Free Keyboard is a free 
app from the Android market that you can download to help with this problem. 
Although we found significantly less inconsistency when typing with Eyes-Free 
Keyboard, the process was still not 100-percent accurate. The free app also 
includes a virtual D-pad that can help with general navigation and with 
activating icons and buttons. When you are not in an edit field for typing, the 
bottom portion of the screen contains the D-pad, the use of which allows you to 
swipe up, down, right, or left to move from icon to icon or among other screen 
elements. Simply tap anywhere on the D-pad portion of the screen to activate an 
icon or button. Though it functionality was also inconsistent, at times we 
found using the D-pad to be easier than Explore by Touch to focus on and 
activate screen elements. The D-pad also doesn't work with menus and pop-ups, 
so you have to use Explore by Touch to access those items. The D-pad has more 
uses while browsing the Web (see below).

We also tested Android 4.0 with our Apple wireless keyboard. This worked very 
well for accessing the features of the phone, and the wireless keyboard was 
much more consistent and useful for navigating the screen and activating icons. 
That said, it is not realistic or desirable to have to carry around a keyboard 
just to use your phone.

Using Apps

We tested a few of the main built-in apps on the Galaxy Nexus.

Making a Call

The Phone app is much improved since our May 2010 Android 
evaluation<http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw110202>. The dialing and 
other buttons were read quickly and clearly by Talk Back, and Explore by Touch 
worked consistently to locate and activate buttons. You use the same Explore by 
Touch technique of finding, lifting, and tapping to activate the buttons within 
the Phone app, so you do have to be accurate when tapping. The dial pad remains 
active during a call so you can interact with automated phone tree systems, but 
you do have to be pretty fast to get your buttons pressed in time.

Talking Caller ID, which speaks the name and number of callers who are in your 
People list, worked well. If a caller is not in your People list, Talking 
Caller ID speaks the number and state from which the caller is calling. One 
glitch is that sometimes the app continues to speak caller ID information after 
the feature is switched off.

The Call Log, Favorites, and People lists were a bit more difficult to use. 
Explore by Touch had difficulty locating entries in the lists; we had much more 
success using our wireless QWERTY keyboard to do so.

Messaging

Overall text messaging was difficult to use in Ice Cream Sandwich. Although we 
could read our list of message threads, we were unable to get Talk Back to read 
the actual text of the messages when using Explore by Touch. We were able to 
read the messages using the Eyes-Free Keyboard D-pad to navigate, but it would 
only read a message in one big chunk. Reading by line, word, character, etc., 
was not possible. Dealing with text messages in general was difficult to figure 
out, and it took a lot of scrolling around to get to the text of the messages.

Settings

We ran into real problems with settings using Explore by Touch. We could read 
and activate each item on the main Settings page, but when we tried to drill 
down and actually change a setting, the functionality was lost. Most didn't 
read at all, and we were unable to change any of them, including the 
accessibility settings. Using the D-pad, however, we were able to read and 
activate all the settings.

Web Browsing

To use the native Web browser in Android, you have to first install the Web 
accessibility scripts, which are found in the accessibility menu. Though the 
Web browser is accessible with Talk Back and Explore by Touch, using these 
tools for exploring the Web is not a pleasant experience. It's difficult to 
navigate a page and activate links with Explore by Touch, and Talk Back only 
read large blocks of text. We also had trouble getting Talk Back to stop after 
it began reading an entire Web page.

The Eyes-Free Keyboard D-pad helped with navigating webpages. Similar to using 
the iPhone rotor, swiping right or left changes the navigation element, and 
up/down moves around by the element you have chosen. The navigation elements 
include group, object, sentence, word, and character. We're not exactly clear 
what a group is, but an object is any HTML element on a page, such as a 
graphic, a list, a block of text, or a table. Using the D-pad, we were also 
able to navigate within a table as long as we were not moving by the group 
element.

Although this evaluation is focused on the built-in accessibility features of 
Ice Cream Sandwich, we thought it would be useful to mention Ideal Android Vox 
browser from 
Apps4Android<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ideal.androidvox2>
 as a better alternative to the built-in browser. The Vox browser greatly 
improves the browsing experience, with enhanced tools for navigating by a 
variety of elements such as heading, table, form, sentence, word, and 
character. In order to use this functionality, you must have a phone with a 
QWERTY keyboard or use an external wireless keyboard. We tested Vox with the 
Apple wireless keyboard. It worked very well, and was a vast improvement over 
the built-in browser with Explore by Touch.

E-mail

Although we had no luck with the phone's native e-mail app, we were able to 
access our Gmail accounts. Navigation was a bit clunky at times, but we were 
ultimately able to read and compose messages.

Music

Explore by Touch was again difficult to use when accessing the Music app, and 
several elements could not be accessed. Once again, the D-pad made significant 
improvements. The biggest obstacle was hearing Talk Back when music was 
playing, as there is no automatic dip in music volume as there is on the iPhone 
when VoiceOver is speaking.

Other Miscellaneous Issues

A variety of additional issues to note with Ice Cream Sandwich:

 *   The phone is now easier to unlock. Press the Lock button, run your finger 
up from the bottom of the screen; when you feel the haptic vibration, swipe to 
the right to unlock.
 *   Easier to answer an incoming call. A haptic vibration alerts you when to 
swipe to the right to answer a call, or to the left to send it to voicemail.
 *   The Android Market worked well, except for the advertisements for apps and 
movies.
 *   The Notification Shade, which appears at the top of the screen and tells 
you about incoming mail and messages, wouldn't work with Explore by Touch. It 
was more accessible with the D-pad.
 *   The D-pad sometimes blocked the Home button, which appears at the bottom 
of every Android screen.
 *   During limited testing we found Android's voice input features to be 
similar to older versions, but with some improvements in voice recognition 
accuracy.

Documentation

Just as we reported in our May 2010 article, the lack of available 
documentation, such as a user guide or quick start guide, makes it difficult to 
learn how to use an Android phone with Ice Cream Sandwich. The tutorial that 
appears during initial setup is insufficient. The additional Google 
documentation we could find were a couple videos, also very limited.

Low Vision Accessibility

Previous versions of Android offered nothing in particular to accommodate 
people with low vision, but Ice Cream Sandwich has made some improvements in 
this area. In addition to the high-definition display on the Galaxy Nexus, 
there is now a setting to increase the font size globally, which also reflows 
the text so that panning is not necessary. You can zoom in on certain elements 
with a pinch gesture, and you can set the phone to reverse polarity for a 
white-on-black display. Finally, Ice Cream Sandwich features default text in 
the Roboto typeface, a sans serif face that people with low vision often find 
easier to read than other common typefaces.

The Bottom Line

Android accessibility has certainly improved since our initial evaluation in 
2010, but the platform's out-of-the-box accessibility is still not close to 
reaching the level of accessibility and usability found in the Apple iPhone. 
Our testers were unimpressed with Explore by Touch. The lack of any useful 
documentation or a central online resource for people with vision loss makes it 
very difficult to learn how to use an Android phone. If we hadn't found some 
online podcasts on the subject, we never would have learned about Eyes-Free 
Keyboard, which makes a very poor out-of-the-box experience more tolerable. 
Such functionality should be included in Android's built-in technology.

In our limited testing, we found significant improvement in features for 
low-vision users; we'd like to hear reader comments about using Android with 
low vision.

The very nature of Android's open-source operating system expands possibilities 
for clever designers to invent more and better access solutions. What we seem 
to have so far is fragmentation of access and of information, making it 
difficult to figure out what is required for an accessible experience.

Of course, there are useful third-party screen reader and access apps (see 
Resources, below), but for some, researching and learning additional apps 
simply adds to the confusion.

At this point, Android phones are probably more suited for techies who like a 
challenge and are willing to spend the time and effort to figure out even basic 
functionality. People who are less comfortable with technology might have real 
problems with Android's demands for accurate interaction with the touchscreen. 
The Android OS is now four years old, and it's time that Google delivered a 
built-in solution to rival that of the iPhone.



Ciaran Ferry | Technology Solutions | ESB Business Service Centre | T: +353 1 
7027945 | www.esb.ie<http://www.esb.ie/>


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